Covid enquiry: Gollum lays out his version of events

I see where you're going with your modification to the headline, I really do. But this is a serious enquiry about a serious subject and it doesn't do the article or the subject any good to alter the headline. Let's be a bit more serious for the sake of public discourse rather than joke about this like the Tories did. You are, of course, free to disagree vehemently in the comments.

The original headline is:

‘Nastiness, arrogance and misogyny’ of No 10 exposed at Covid inquiry

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A toxic culture of government incompetence, backstabbing and misogyny was laid bare at the Covid public inquiry on Tuesday with messages revealing Boris Johnson’s dismissive attitude to millions of old people at risk from the virus.

The former prime minister’s top aide Dominic Cummings was accused of “aggressive, foul-mouthed and misogynistic” abuse after messages showed he tried to sack the senior civil servant Helen MacNamara, saying No 10 was “dodging stilettos from that cunt”.

Johnson’s chaotic indecisiveness delayed lockdown measures, the inquiry heard, while he had told senior advisers the Covid virus was “just nature’s way of dealing with old people” and he was “no longer buying” the fact the NHS was overwhelmed during the pandemic.

In a lengthy session before the inquiry, Cummings claimed the cabinet had been “largely irrelevant” to Covid policy in 2020, and that he was “reflecting a widespread view” that if anything understated the problem, when he used expletive-laden descriptions of ministers including “useless fuckpigs”, “morons” and “cunts”.

Cummings told the inquiry how the “dysfunctional system” during a “meltdown of the British state” had failed to deal with the crisis, while Cain, who served as No 10’s communications director, criticised Johnson’s tendency to “oscillate” between decisions for slowing down the government’s response.

In a WhatsApp message sent to his top aides in October 2020, the former prime minister said he had been “slightly rocked” by Covid infection rates and suggested he was, as a result, unconvinced that hospitals were on the brink despite public warnings from NHS chiefs and frontline staff.

The original article contains 1,226 words, the summary contains 256 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!